Mark,
Re your comment below:
> Jim,
> I'm making some progress. Now you concede
hard
> boiled is not solely
> language. You hadn't done that earlier.
I'm not conceding anything because I NEVER, repeat, NEVER
said that hard-boiled was solely a matter of language.
Consequently, I can't concede that I was wrong about
something I never asserted in the first place.
> I'll now
> have to get you to concede
> that being born wealthy and/or having a
good
> education does not preclude a
> character from being hard boiled.
Again, I never said education precluded one from being
hard-boiled. And I never said that wealth, by itself,
absolutely precluded him from being hard-boiled. I DID say
that coming from a particular class was as close to a
disqualifying factor as there was, but class isn't defined
exclusively by wealth. It's defined by a particularly
elegant, and aristocratic world view.
> There is free
> will. People can have
> their situation change either by their own
volition
> or because
> circumstances change.
Certainly there is free will but it's not absolute, and it
can't completely overcome upbringing. You can't "will"
yourself to be left-handed if you're naturally right-handed.
You can train yourself to use your left hand, but you'll
always going against your own natural inclination. Similarly,
you can't "will" yourself to inelegant or colloquial if you
weren't raised that way. You can't "will" yourslef to have
the common touch. Neither does the acquisition of wealth
suddenly make one naturally aristocratic.
A few examples of characters
> in the best 111 who
> ostensibly do not meet all your criteria are
Richard
> Bone, (Cutter and
> certainly Mo also would fall under this
category,
> but they didn't make the
> cut.) Bruce Wayne, James Figueroas, Milo
> Milodragovitch and C W Sugrue
> (Crumley, who I always considered a writer of
hard
> boiled fiction, can't
> restrain himself from having his two
protagonists
> sometimes write some very
> lyrical passages)
I'm not familiar with Bone (other than from the film version,
CUTTER'S WAY) or Figueroas and therefore can't comment. I
don't consider Batman hard-boiled. Miodragovitch and Sugrue
are hard-boiled because they are tough and colloquial.
> An assassin like James Bond you say is not
hard
> boiled.
At least you're quoting me accurately on that. A man's line
of work doesn't make him hoard-boiled or non-hard-boiled.
Hard-boiled is a question of attitude, and upper-class
British gentleman James Bond doesn't have it.
> It seems to me any
> lawyer or doctor would be disqualified by
you.
Depends on the doctor or the lawyer. Perry Mason certainly
was hard-boiled, particularly in his earliest appearances.
The reason he was hard-boiled? He was tough and colloquial.
DA McCoy on LAW & ORDER is hard-boiled. You wanna know
why? It's because he's tough and colloquial. Dr. John
Thorndyke was not hard-boiled because, while he could be
pretty tough, he wasn't colloquial. Quincy, on the other
hadn,being both tough and colloquial, is hard-boiled. You see
a pattern here yet?
> There must be series
> featuring criminologists. I haven't read them,
but
> they must be too educated
> to be hard boiled.
Education isn't the defining factor. Toughness and
colloquialism is.
>How about the commisioner of
> police in a big city? He
> figures to be wealthy . . .
Not if he's honest, unless he won the lottery or has
inheritied wealth. He'd make a comfortable living, but he
wouldn't be nearly as well off as a comparably placed CEO in
private business. Trust me on this one, I know whereof I
speak.
> . . . but he would have had to come
> up the ranks to be hard
> boiled.
I'd say so.
> Any one or two word description seems
> inadequate to me and any
> arbitary means of disualifying someone can't
serve
> either.
Then don't accept it. But don't get yourself in such an
uproar because I do. Hard-boiled is basically a simple type
of literature. That's its appeal, and that's why its basic
components can be reduced to a short phrase. The shorter the
phrase, frankly, the LESS likelihood of some character being
"unfairly" disqualifying.
While we're on that subject, what's the difference anyway.
Qualifying as "hard-boiled" whether by my definiton or anyone
else's isn't a guarantee of quality. It jst means that a
charcter fits certain defined parameters. It doesn't mean
that that character or the story inwhich he appears is any
less likely to be a piece of meretricious crap. Nor does not
fitting those parameters make him any more likely to be a
meretricious piece of crap. It just means that one
character's hard-boiled and theo ther isn't.
JIM DOHERTY
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